Talk:Death in Paradise
BBC Press Releases Introduction Ben Miller and film star Sara Martins star in ambitious eight-part drama series Death In Paradise from new television writer Robert Thorogood. ﻿The drama is produced by Red Planet Pictures and Atlantique Productions in association with BBC Worldwide and Kudos Film and Television for BBC One and France Télévisions with support from the region of Guadeloupe. The drama is produced by Red Planet Pictures and Atlantique Productions in association with BBC Worldwide and Kudos Film and Television for BBC One and France Télévisions with support from the region of Guadeloupe. Death In Paradise is a fish-out-of-water story about a quintessential English cop posted to the Caribbean island of Saint-Marie. To anyone else it would be paradise, but for Detective Inspector Richard Poole (Miller) it's hell! Totally unsuited to the Caribbean way of life, Richard hates the sun, sea and sand and isn't used to their style of policing. But he is a brilliant detective whose first case on the island is investigating the murder of a British cop. Working with the exotic local Camille (Martins), each week Richard goes about solving an intricate and intriguing murder. The drama was filmed on location in Guadeloupe this year. Commissioned by Ben Stephenson, Controller, BBC Drama Commissioning and Danny Cohen, Controller of BBC One, executive producers are Tony Jordan for Red Planet Pictures and Polly Hill at the BBC. Death In Paradise is a Red Planet Pictures/Atlantique Productions in association with BBC Worldwide and Kudos Film and TV for BBC and France Télévisions. Death In Paradise is Robert Thorogood's first television screen credit; he was discovered through Red Planet Pictures' annual writing competition The Red Planet Prize and selected as one of the finalists who was then mentored by Executive Producer Tony Jordan and Simon Winstone (Head of Development).http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/deathinparadise Robert Thorogood The series creator and lead writer shares his inspiration for new BBC One drama Death In Paradise: The idea for Death In Paradise came to me pretty much fully formed when I read a report of a suspected murder in the Caribbean during the Cricket World Cup. I found it surprising that a British Metropolitan Policeman was sent out to head up the murder enquiry because the cricketer held a British passport. I imagined an uptight and by-the-book London copper trying to solve a murder in the sweltering heat of the Tropics. There was a series in this. I was sure of it. The only problem was, I didn't have a single broadcast credit to my name. How could I go about creating and writing a series this ambitious without any experience? (I'd written plenty of things before, but nothing that had ever been made). So I took the pitch for my 'Copper in the Caribbean' idea around all of the production companies I could blag my way into. But they weren't interested. They liked the idea enough, but it would be expensive to make, it would require filming in the Caribbean for at least five months, and there was one thing they believed above all else: it was unlikely the BBC would allow someone without a writing credit to their name to create and write a primetime TV series. I could see their point. It did seem wilfully over-ambitious. In fact, as 2007 turned into 2008 I was beginning to think that maybe I should just pack the whole writing game in. I was approaching 40, I was a stay-at-home Dad while my wife (a broadcast journalist for Classic FM) was out earning the money that kept the family afloat. Even my young children could see that I wasn't like other Dads: my son told me one day that he had a new imaginary friend who put on a suit and tie every morning and commuted to Canary Wharf where he worked in an office. Wasn't it time to recognise a stark truth? If it was ever going to happen for me as a writer, it would have happened by now. And then I met Tony Jordan. Or rather, Tony set up Red Planet Pictures with a writing competition for 'new' writers and a promise: anyone who got to the finals of the competition would get to spend a day with him – pitching and discussing ideas – and, if he liked anything he was pitched, he promised he'd do everything in his power to get the show made. It was a tempting offer, but I couldn't enter another script-writing competition, could I? Surely my family and I would be better off if I just grew up and finally found some way of earning actual money. I couldn't help myself. I hadn't come all of this way to give up now. I entered Red Planet's writing competition and, luckily for me, I got chosen as one of the finalists. When I got 'into the room' with Tony Jordan, I pitched Death In Paradise to him... and he loved it. And with Tony now championing the idea, the BBC commissioned a script from me and – to cut a very long story short – the series was eventually greenlit two years later. And that, of course, is when the real hard graft started. It's obviously a huge challenge setting up a new show – particularly a murder mystery series set abroad – but it's hard not to love your job when it involves such chores as location scouting a Paradise island in the Caribbean. We chose Guadeloupe, but on our first recce we had difficulty finding the 'right' village to set the series in. That was, until we stumbled across the fishing village of Deshaies. It was as if someone had read my scripts and built exactly what I'd written. Our Production Designer had been unable to find a beach-side bungalow with quite the right view for our hero, so he'd done the next best thing. He'd found the view he wanted and then built a house on it, even though it meant a tree would be growing through the bedroom. The view from 'Richard's shack' is stunning – a crescent of golden beach with the Caribbean sea beyond – and as I stood there on the verandah, I had one of those moments where everything becomes terribly vivid. I sat on the verandah that only existed because I wrote that it did and watched a huge and shimmering sun dip down and eventually vanish over the horizon. As a writer, it doesn't get much better than that.http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/deathinparadise/thorogood Characters DI Richard Poole played by Ben Miller – quintessentially English, blisteringly intelligent, with a unique approach, if only he didn't hate sun, sea and sand... Camille Bordey played by Sara Martins – sexy, instinctive and straight-talking, she's a the perfect foil for Richard's genius. Dwayne Myers played by Danny John-Jules – he may lack ambition, but he has complete faith in the chief and he really understands the criminal mind – perhaps a little too well. Fidel Best played by Gary Carr – young, keen and at times naïve, there's nothing he won't do for his friends – and his doggedness can prove vital in breaking a case. Lily Thomson played by Lenora Crichlow – beautiful, warm, and calm in a crisis, Lily is the long-suffering rock at the heart of the Royal Saint-Marie Police force. Comm. Selwyn Patterson played by Don Warrington – charming and unfailingly polite, Richard's boss shows he can bend the rules when it suits him... and that he has a terrible temper when riled.http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/deathinparadise/characters Interview with Ben Miller How did you become involved with Death In Paradise? I was on holiday in Ibiza, having a lovely time, writing a book and looking at the stars every night and generally not having a care in the world. Then I got sent the script for Death in Paradise. I couldn't get back to England in time for the auditions so my girlfriend filmed me on her camera and I sent it off via email. A few weeks later I met with the director and producer. So I actually have Jess, my partner, to thank for the job. How would you describe Richard Poole? He's a bit of a mixed bag really. I think he's sort of been stalled slightly in his career. I don't think he's really been allowed to reach the rank that he should have, because I don't think he's great with people. However, he is remarkably good at a lot of what he does and other things he's just peculiarly inept at. He's funny, he's got a good sense of humour but not necessarily witty. He's a loner, you feel that he sort of has trouble forming relationships, whether it's at work or in his private life. How does he get on with the different members of his team? With Camille I think he's alternately impressed and utterly infuriated by. She never really does things the way Richard believes they are supposed to be done, she's always cutting corners and making leaps of intuition and I think he finds that a bit frustrating. Richard loves nothing better than filling in a form and making sure that all the boxes are ticked. I think he finds Dwayne equally baffling, because Dwayne has, to all outward appearances, a very laid-back approach to police work and he's got a very individual dress sense and a very unfettered approach to solving crimes. I think Dwayne is also, in some senses, Richard's nemesis because he constantly has to ride in the sidecar on Dwayne's motorbike, which he finds very hard to stomach. And then there's Fidel – I think Richard sees a certain amount of himself in Fidel – Fidel is extremely hard-working and conscientious and as the series goes on, he becomes increasingly distracted for one reason or another and I think when Richard shows disappointment in Fidel it's somehow more keenly felt than it is perhaps in Dwayne or Camille, because I think he really has a little bit of an almost mentor or father/son relationship with Fidel. Richard inherits an incredible house when he goes out to the island, can you describe it? The nearest thing I can describe it as, is like walking into a house you've dreamed. It's situated on a completely flawless beach surrounded by jungle. It's built around a tree – it was built for the show – and it's full of eccentricities, the way the place itself was built and all the little knick-knacks that are inside it makes it feel completely magical. It was one of the most transporting sets I've ever worked on, in that you didn't really have to do much, other than just react to the building as it was. It's a very hard thing to describe, I mean it's an amazing set and instantly all you want to do is think "can I live here?" I was tempted to stay the night there but then I realised there weren't any windows, so then I thought I'd give it a miss! How did you find working with French film actress Sara Martins? I loved all my scenes with Sara, I just think she's just such a fantastic actress. I'm a huge fan of French comedy, the French play comedy in a slightly different way than we do, they play it with a sort of realism that we don't necessarily often do ourselves. I love that style of playing and it's brilliant fun working with Sara. It felt very natural right from the very beginning. Death in Paradise has been produced by Red Planet Pictures and Atlantique Productions in association with BBC Worldwide and Kudos Film and TV for BBC and France Télévisions, produced with support from the region of Guadeloupe. Did you feel that the co-production made a difference to filming? It did because you were sort of aware that we were making the show for an international audience. In a practical sense a huge number of the cast and crew were French, so French was often the language that was spoken on set and I enjoyed that a lot. I enjoyed learning French and I enjoyed speaking French. And I really miss speaking French now that I've got back because I was really, really into it and one of the most fun things for me was speaking French at work all day. That was really great. Richard wears a wool suit throughout the whole series: how did costume adapt that for you in the 40 degree heat? There's not that much you can do really, I mean they cut the lining out of the suit but at the end of the day, you really just have to wear a wool suit! I wish we'd found some sort of incredible fibre used by astronauts that looks like wool, but no, it was just wool. You often find something like that really brings a character to life and it becomes something that sort of helps to make them who they are, and it felt like that with that suit. Much as it was uncomfortable to wear, I also couldn't really bear the idea of not wearing it because it felt so right, because that was what he would do. It made you Richard in a sense? Yeah, I'm sure he'd still be Richard without the suit, but it seemed right for the stage of the story that we were at. Was there a favourite standout moment from filming for you? So many amazing things happened when we were filming this. I've never really lived abroad for any length of time and it was very, very different to England – Guadeloupe – and to be there for such a long period of time, but it was amazing. There were so many moments stand out, some of them bizarre, some of them sort of beautiful. One day I drove in a car all the way to the top of a volcano, up through the rainforest and it was just the most amazing thing looking out from the very top of the rainforest and seeing the whole island. I remember we were filming on one side of the island and you could see the volcano on Montserrat erupting – absolutely amazing! Another day we were filming at a big plantation house over on one of the other sides of the islands where there was a huge iguana in one of the trees, an enormous great thing, probably two and a half feet long! Death in Paradise is very much a return to the 'whodunnit,' is that what you think audiences will enjoy about the series? What attracted me to it is it feels sort of classic, it's sort of Agatha Christie murder puzzles but within a very up-to-date setting. It felt like it was a very new way of doing those kind of stories; the team are stuck on this island with no forensics, no ballistics and they have to solve crimes as people solved crimes a century ago and there's something wonderful about that. There's something wonderful about that sort of Poirot, Agatha Christie style investigation: cross-questioning all the witnesses and checking their stories, looking for means, motive and opportunity. It's got that wonderful classic feel to it, at the same time as this incredibly unusual tropical island setting and a very remote tropical island at that, remote in the geographical sense. It feels like a different time and place.http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/deathinparadise/miller Interview with Sara Martins How did you become involved with Death In Paradise? I had worked with France Télévisions before and when they received the script they thought of me. I came in and did a few auditions. They were looking for someone who would work well with Ben Miller and we met and got along well from the start. You have played policewomen in the past. What attracted you to the role of Camille? What I loved about Death In Paradise is that it isn't a procedural cop show. The team work on a fictional island – Saint-Marie – which doesn't have any forensic or ballistic facilities, the team has to rely on their expertise. The show is focused around the relationships of the team – and the teasing between the French and English cultures. In that respect it is a very classic show – it could almost be set in the 50s. Camille is a great character; she is very strong and enjoys a challenge and I felt her connected with her. Did the teasing about the French and English culture spill over screen too? Yes. It's funny, I didn't know how French some of my mannerisms were until I worked on this show. How do Camille and Richard get along? Their relationship is like cat and dog. It's one of those relationships where they are both very intelligent and enjoy a challenge but the way they do things is very different. It is very much an attraction/repulsion relationship! How did you find working with Ben Miller? Ben was fantastic to work with; we got on really well from the start. He is an incredibly hard worker. Sometimes scenes just work naturally and are very easy and sometimes you need to work harder on them. Ben would never give up on a scene no matter how long he'd been working that day. I learnt so much from him. You have a lot of the stunts in the show. What was it like performing those? Well I did have a lot of stunts until I broke my Achilles tendon! I was performing a scene where Fidel (played by Gary Carr) was going to run and jump on to a boat. I was saying to the director I really wanted to do it too. Gary and I started running and I managed to slip and break my Achilles tendon! I had to go to London for surgery and rest it for two weeks before I could go back to Guadeloupe. I hope viewers will never guess though as it is hidden so well on screen. What was it like filming on Guadeloupe? It was an incredible island – very hot. One of my favourite things was to get up early in the morning, sit on the beach and watch the sun rise – that was beautiful. Will you dub Camille's voice for France Télévisions? Of course! It will be very odd working with the actor voicing Ben's character. I will have to stop myself from saying: "No, Ben said it like this when he performed it."http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/deathinparadise/martins --Humph (talk) 03:27, January 19, 2018 (UTC) Awards * Diversity in a Drama Production at the Screen Nation Awards 2015https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFM2e00dP4Y * Knight of Illumination Awards 2016http://koi2018.co.uk/previous-winners/#2016 * Crime Programme of the Year at the TRIC Awards 2017http://tric.org.uk/2017awardswinners.php --Humph (talk) 15:07, February 12, 2018 (UTC) References